How Covid-19 will change the rules and behavior of our games

The novel Coronavirus has changed our world completely. From now on we will talk about things pre-Covid-19 and after Covid-19, with changes to how we live our daily lives very likely.

One of our forum members, 'Zinny' from Wexford, posted about how it will effect Gaelic Games when our sports resume.

It is thought provoking and worth a read:

I think the one thing that has not yet been discussed is how Covid 19 will change the rules and behavior of our games.

The most basic one - nobody will be allowed share water bottles. This will have a major impact as players will have to have one bottle assigned to them and only be allowed use that one. The water man with his single bottle will be gone as there is no way he can use it. Does it mean specific water breaks during a game? who knows.

All pitches were games are played will have to be fenced and only players and management allowed into the grounds. After game pitch incursions at all levels have to go.

Shaking of hands before and after games will have to stop.

Spitting at a player - thankfully not something you often see but the penalty will have to be even more severe.

Spitting or spitting out of water after drinking etc all have to stop on the pitch - this will be a hard one for some people to stop but stop it has to.

Players who are not feeling well or just recovered from illness should have a minimum amount of time before they go back to training - hard to police but we all know that we and other lads when out on the pitch not 100%.

Swapping jerseys - gone.

Those are some of the items I can think about however if there is one major lesson that could be taken from this is that people do not obey rules or advice unless there is serious consequences and even then, some idiots still don't. Translate that to the pitch and you see the same, unless the consequences for breaking the rules are tough and enforced nothing changes, stop making excuses, such as it was an accident or he didn't mean it. I am sure nobody doesn't deliberately wash their hands but they do forget. Forgetting can have tragic consequences.